


Castor and Pollux

by StringTheori



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Howard is kind of really possessive about Steve, Mild Homophobic Language, Several mentions of blowjobs, he is a good friend tho, howard has emotional problems, howard is a terrible father, or at least steve thinks so, playing fast and loose with timelines, this is not super happy cheerful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-22
Updated: 2014-04-22
Packaged: 2018-01-20 08:47:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1504193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StringTheori/pseuds/StringTheori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fic where Howard is emotionally constipated, a terrible human being, catches someone doing something, and brushes off friendships because he can.</p><p>"Once upon a time, Howard Stark fell in love with Steve Rogers.</p><p>Wait - scratch that.</p><p>Once upon a time, Howard Stark fell in love with the science that created Steve Rogers, had a fantastic love affair with the equations, married a woman he didn't love for money and name, 'raised' a son he never wanted, and then died in a fireball of a car after spending the night staring at Bucky Barnes' ass.</p><p>Howard Stark hates to be boring."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Castor and Pollux

**Author's Note:**

> Playing a bit fast and loose with the timelines of things. 
> 
> No clue where this came from, I just got some words in my head. It's un-beta'd, please pardon the typos.

Once upon a time, Howard Stark fell in love with Steve Rogers.

Wait - scratch that.

Once upon a time, Howard Stark fell in love with the science that created Steve Rogers, had a fantastic love affair with the equations, married a woman he didn't love for money and name, 'raised' a son he never wanted, and then died in a fireball of a car after spending the night staring at Bucky Barnes' ass.

Howard Stark hates to be boring.

++

The kid stumbles over his words whenever he speaks to a set of tits and says nothing except for patriotic 'yessir' and 'nosir' when he talks to someone that isn't in possession of aforementioned endowments. He's shaped like a termite infested broom with eyes too large and a nose too long for such a scrawny body. Where Steve Rogers got the genes for that jawline - it could cut diamonds, jeez - it sure as shit wasn't showing anywhere else on him.

"My God, you are the tiniest human being known to man." says Howard even though no one but some of the soldiers can hear him. Phillips isn't as amused and the kid yells someting about needing a piss. Howard marks the day off as one where they bury some half-dead kid from Brooklyn when he becomes full-dead along with Howard getting his ass chewed out by Carter.

She terrifies him a little bit.

It's a turn on.

No one is surprised.

++

Science distances itself from madness by being written down.

Howard explodes his science, his machine, and the kid is shrieking. Howard says "write that down" but he's not quite sure if anyone does. If people can see through the bright flash of the machine and Vita-Rays - he hates that name - then Howard will eat his hat.

It turns out that hats taste disgusting and Howard is not a fan of them even with seasonings.

See, thing is, Howard sees this Greek god stumble out of the machine. He moves like a boy in puberty, all jerking movements because since when did people have so much arms or legs, and even Carter gapes. No one blames her. No one even thinks to, especially not Howard.

The doctor can have his serum. Howard has his machine and it creates things like Captain America. It's love, pure and simple, and it crowds his mind to the point where his fingers itch. To hell with Rogers and his body --

\-- Even as it dashes out into the streets, half dressed and people dead, but his _ass_ \--

\-- but he's part Howards' now. He is perfect.

"I want to keep him."

Someone snorts even as they move the bodies from the scene. "You and half of the city as of three minutes ago, Stark."

++

Somewhere, somehow, they become friends.

Carter, that is.

Steve helps in his own backwards way, Howard guesses.

"Howard," she says. " _Howard_ , he needs to go rescue them and you're going to help."

"Or not," Howard is up to his elbows in grease or lube or whatever it is he's using to fix the fucking weapon he's been poking at. All he knows is that it makes it move. It could be Vaseline for all he cares. "If you haven't noticed, doll, I'm a bit busy."

Carter doesn't even shoot him for calling her 'doll'. That alone is testimony enough. Howard lifts his head and squints at her from behind his goggles.

"Really?" And he hears it in his own voice, clear as day: resignation. Howard sighs the sigh of the melodramatic and tosses the goggles onto the scrap heap he once called a project. (He builds and discards projects much in the same way he wines and dines pretty women - with a big grin and without a second thought.) "Will he wear the tights?"

"You say that as if he's never wearing the tights." Carter pats him on the shoulder, just once, and she turns on her heel. Something in his chest flutters, disconcerting, new. Howard squashes it soon as he realizes it exists and tries to drown it out with the song he hears whenever the USO shows go on.

The last thing Howard needs is to _respect_ someone.

++

Right, right, so he and Spangles are friends too.

It's a queer thing, being friends with a legend when you, yourself, are a legend in your own mind. Howard is well aware how wonderful the government thinks he is, although a few have voiced disappointment over the serum not being replicated.

("How d'you expect for us to do that?" Howard demands when they complain. "I make the thing that uses the thing. Get me another scientist on the run with the formula and you have yourself your machine. Until then, you're stuck with the singing girls and their dancing monkey.")

It happens eventually though. You can't help a man save his best friend and a few other guys from a mad-science base via your own personal, wonderful skills without having that battle forged comradery going. Howard belives this makes him a soldier. Rogers does not.

Howard knows this and appreciates the fact Rogers only smiles and offers him some of the God-awful coffee whenever Howard says anything.

There's Bucky Barnes, too. They meet once - well, they see each other a few times, they speak and shake hands once, and then there's the time where there is screaming. To be fair, Howard walks into buildings expecting there not to be a blond mountain of scientific perfection on his knees, nor does he count on there being another man not created of machines with his pants around his ankles and his fist tight in some sun colored hair.

Howard screams something along the lines of "Good lord, my eyes!" and throws the paperwork in his hands at them. Steve falls on his ass and Barnes is red faced and yelling back "Get out then, Jesus Christ!". Howard does, although the most traumatizing part is hearing Rogers say "I think I choked" as he runs away from them.

That's the first time Bucky Barnes meets Howard Stark.

The second time is during formal introductions from Carter-or-Phillips before the big boys march off to war (again) and Howard takes off to wherever he's supposed to. Howard and Barnes have to act as if the entire thing never happened and Rogers kept his eyes on Carter, the traitor. They shake hands - Howard makes sure it's not the hand from Rogers hair - and mutter something polite.

Later Rogers thanks him for not being angry or reporting them or whatever the fuck else upstanding moral citizens ought to do.

"Rogers," Howard says with a raise of his very expensive bottle of bourbon. "As long as nothing of yours - or his - is going into me, I don't care if you bugger Adolf himself. Just learn to lock some doors. Deal?"

Rogers smiles real big and slow, his teeth much whiter then when they met when he was so small and near dead from living. Howard drowns the urge to pry his mouth open and study him like a horse by taking a swig straight from the bottle.

"You're a good friend, Mr. Stark."

"No fondue." Because Howard isn't sure what to say to that. He waves the bottle in the vague direction of Not Near Him. "No breading my cheese, Rogers."

Rogers laughs.

Howard sees him with the commandos and Barnes the next day as they leave. Barnes glances to Howard and, Howard swears to God, Barnes _winks_.

++

Howard isn't sure if this makes him Barnes' friend too.

The idea of so many people in his circle makes him antsy so he stops thinking about it.

Later, Bucky dies. Howard says "He was a good guy" when people ask but never claims friendship. Not ratting on a guy didn't qualify you as the best of anything and it feels as if it might cheapen whatever Barnes and Rogers has.

Had.

++

"Call me Steve." Rogers says one of the earlier times they see one another. Howard looks up from the latest of armor for the mighty Captain he's putting together, blinks, and Steve (rightly) takes it as a sign of him not listening. "My name. It's Steve. You should call me it."

Barnes isn't dead yet so Rogers still has the eyes of a breathing man.

"You know," Howard taps his fingers on the side of the gun, his other hand pushing up the goggles. "One of these days I'm going to find out how much my machine changed you."

"Yes, Howard, because that is exactly what this conversation is about."

"Hey, I'm making you weapons and you're kind of one of my weapons. Let a guy get a cheap thrill where he can."

"Heh." Steve picks up a screwdriver and balances it on the tip of his index finger. Howard watches, unable to do more than stare. "I'm just a cheap thrill?"

"One of my back ally girls. Sorry. You're the prettiest, if that helps."

Steve laughs, so maybe it helps a little. "I've got my own, thanks."

Howard isn't sure what he thinks of that - thrills? Back ally girls? Then he meets Bucky Barnes and goes

'Ahhhh yes'.

++

"Steve can't be dead."

++

Howard tells himself he's sad because he lost the invention of a lifetime. Everything about Captain America is gone, they can no longer learn from him. The scientist died for no research to be passed on and all Howard got out of it was some patents and nightmares of the freckles on Barnes' ass.

If Captain America is dead, how can they recreate the serum?

If Steve is dead, will Carter put up with Howards' bullshit?

So many opportunities are gone in the cold nothingness of Steves grave. Howard tries to convince himself that he looks for him to regain what he's lost and not because they talked about Carter and Steve acted as if he understood when Howard rambled. Howard certainly doesn't search for him because he was told 'Call me Steve' or because of the way Steve thanked him for not reporting them, all trust and cuddly smiles. It's not because he stops seeing Steve as his labrat somewhere between Hell and a hard place, and a good time before he nosedives into the freezing wasteland. The idea of testing Steve turns his stomach. That's not the reason, though, don't be dumb.

He hunts for him because Carter is sad and Howard hates it when women go all frosty and power-hungry. Women in charge? Ha! (Then S.H.I.E.L.D and even Howard has to admit to himself that he always preferred women in charge but sometimes he's just a punk.)

... Of course those are why he spends a fortune on looking and why he does the same looking for Barnes whenever he can get the clearance. It happens maybe twice but, damnit, he has his reasons and they are valid ones, and Call-me-Steve would have wanted it.

He never tries to explain to himself why he keeps so much of Steves things. Anything the government doesn't want goes into Stark possession, along with one or two things he doesn't care if they want. Howard keeps Steves sketchbook. He offers it to Peggy once - she's Peggy now - but she turns it down with a calm hand and a slow headshake. Howard takes the hint.

++

He and Peggy kiss once, just before Tony is born.

Howard says, "Wanna see if we would've work?"

"You're drunk."

"And you are too proper a woman to go kissing a married man."

"Psh," she says, and rolls those pretty eyes. "Maria gave me the go ahead ages ago."

Howard doubts that. Peggy leans in and kisses him once on the lips. She keeps her mouth closed and so does Howard and it is _terrible_.

"Oh my God," Howard rubs at his face. "I am so glad we never tried to make it work. I think part of me actually died from how few sparks--"

"Kindly stop talking."

He does and they never speak of it again.

That's a lie. He tells Maria since it happens before he stop caring if he cheats on her. Howard says "It was _horrible_ , Maria." Maria cracks a smile and demands a foot rub in penance. Perhaps Peggy doesn't lie to him after all.

(Later he finds out there was a bet and Peggy won. Howard supposes he should be insulted but, eh.)

Times like those, Howard loves Maria a little. He thinks she loves him too.

Later on, not so much. But he has his work and his alcohol, she has her things and whatever else she does with her time.

Tony, though.

++

Steve would hate how Howard treats Tony.

"I drink because you come into my workshop." Howard tells Tony once. It's untrue and quite possibly a terrible thing to tell a four year old. Tony screws up his face and storms out without crying. Howard is drunk. He doesn't worry about it. He drinks because of other reasons.

He goes to the grave thinking Tony remembers that. He loves his son in the fucked up way Howard can love anything not directly related to his work or the old war, but he loves him never the less.

(Tony doesn't remember.

He blames himself for Howards drinking but he doesn't know why.

Probably for the best.

Especially once that whole Vanko thing happened and Howard is almost shot in the head. He spends some more time with his son after that but, honestly, he has work and Tony does better at school.)

++

Maria likes to look up at the stars sometimes. At one point Howard pays someone to paint them in her rooms - she loves it and points them out sometimes when he's there. It kills the mood. Maria learns to not talk about certain star groupings if she wants to try and get pregnant again.

Barnes has freckles on his ass in the shape of Castor and Pollux. The freckles are about level with where a back pocket may be, invisible to all except when the pants are down. With Barnes dead and all, Howard generally assumes he'll never see those freckles again.

Life never goes the way Howard Stark plans it.

He's at the sink, washing his hands and for all intents and purposes ignoring the other men around him. It's the Nineties, a time with color bright enough to make his father flinch were he still alive. Howard pretends he's not living in a world full of garish jackets and bathrooms without men offering towels for tips.

Howard stark is, in fact, old. He's seventy one next week and it terrifies him more than nuclear war ever will. Lines pepper his face, his lips thinner, and his hair pure white. Howard isn't so far gone that his hands shake, he still works, and he's _proud_ of that even when the sight of a freckled ass behind him means he drops the little towel there they leave for them anyway.

Other men are in the rest room, their low voices friendly until they're in the stalls. Talking is not on. Generally one does not lower ones pants until the door is closed but Howard sees a wide-shouldered man swagger into the stall behind him.

The door closes only after he sees the freckles and it is terrifying.

Howard goes back to the table.

Maria says things like "Are you quite alright, dear?" and "Darling, you look tired." Maria caring about how he looks is nothing new but the way she frets with his wine glass is. Howard puts his hand over hers as he watches the man resed in black leave the bathroom.

Barnes.

"You look lovely tonight." Howard says to his wife, looking away from Barnes to try and hold off any sort of table flipping panic. Maria preens. "Have we talked to Tony today?"

"He sent you a card. Or his secretary did, at any rate. You called and had a very cordial conversation." She turns her hand in his and smiles. She has magnificent caps.

"Ah," says Howard. He grins. "Of course."

++

Barnes stays at the bar with his back to the Starks. He nurses a very strong drink through the hour and a half they remain. Howard leaves a message for Nick, though a bit garbled as telephone technology has yet to catch up with the situation.

Howard leaves with Maria.

Once they are home, they will be safe.

++

Four days later, Tony finds Howards old things while they prepare for the funeral. He reads about Steve Rogers and Howards initial notes that are more scrawl than words. There's things about loving his creation and, to a even creepier degree, how he is not sure that he can love anything he has not made.

Howard wrote odd things in his official notes to himself.

Cramped handwriting on one page says 'MStark blew up SRogers' that Howard crossed out and replaced with 'machine blew up, was wonderful, best day'. Further down, the same blotting pen, is 'Scientist dead, SRogers shirtless'.

Tony mutters about a workaholic alcoholic of a father and throws the notebook in the growing pile of shit he doesn't want. He drinks as he does it.

++

Nineteen years later, Tony finds the video.

Most other men hitting forty may bristle at being called a 'creation'.

Tony still loathes himself and resents his father but being told he is Howards best creation means he has Pepper find the notebook.

++

In 2011, Steve Rogers comes back.

In 2014, Bucky Barnes returns.

++

Tony holds out hope Howard may join them but that is too predictable. Howard never was a man for predictable or for not letting his son down. 

At the very least, Howard was never boring.


End file.
